Boise mayor candidates step away from the issues to talk about family loss, challenges
At the height of campaign season in what has become a contentious mayor’s race in Boise, candidates set aside politics for a moment at an October forum to share experiences of family pain.
At a debate hosted by the Boise Young Professionals on Oct. 25, a moderator asked candidates about a time they have faced personal adversity.
Mike Masterson, a former Boise police chief and Mayor Lauren McLean’s top challenger, responded with the experience of losing his son.
When he was a young parent and the father of a 3-year-old and an 18 month-old, Masterson said he momentarily turned his back for long enough for his youngest child to wander out of the garage and outside of his yard.
When he realized that, Masterson said he ran frantically around the neighborhood looking for his son. He eventually found him lying in water.
“I did everything I could to revive him,” including CPR, he said. “I remember being tapped on the shoulder by the police and fire to give up that.”
He said the tragedy could have “marked” him for life.
“I haven’t shared that with many people,” Masterson told the few dozen people gathered at the candidate forum. “I don’t want sympathy.”
He said the experience taught him that “life is not predictable, and it’s not guaranteed.”
“Tomorrow isn’t promised for any of us,” he said. “I’ve had friends that have developed cancer and have six weeks to live, and we’re all one test away from that outcome as well.”
The account brought McLean to tears. She went on to describe her own brush with a parent’s panic, when her teenage son lost consciousness and was seriously injured in a mountain biking accident during her 2019 campaign.
McLean and her husband had to wait hours for emergency services to transport him from mountain trails, she said, and then watched him being loaded into a helicopter to be taken to a Boise hospital.
At the hospital, her son couldn’t remember anything, she said, and kept asking what had happened. Three days later he was released from the hospital. Today he “is fine,” she said.
McLean said the experience taught her there is “absolutely nothing more important.”
“I would walk away from anything for my family,” she said.
Another candidate, Joseph Evans, talked about his experience serving in the military in Afghanistan, and how he became disillusioned when he learned he was “providing intelligence for warlords, warlords who had no compunction of violating human rights.”
Evans’ change in viewpoint led him to return to school at Boise State University, and taught him about the need to give people a chance to recover from their past.
“To be able to make sure that yes, everybody is given the maximum opportunity to stand back up and take their lives back after trauma,” he said.
Aaron Reis, the fourth candidate for mayor, talked about struggling with how best to challenge authority and stand up to people in power.
Then the debate moved to the next question. It moved on to topics like affordable housing, transportation and jobs — political questions that voters will grapple with at the polls in the coming days.
